Chapter One: A Crown Prince’s Unreasonable Condition
The poem was about the moon.
"O silver moon,” recited Lady Duan Shuang, ”O lantern of the heavens, O round and shining dish, upon the lake you float, like a very large and lovely fish.”
The Hall of Lotus Harmony was absolutely silent.
It was the spring banquet, and the whole court was there. The long tables down both sides of the hall were crowded with ministers and generals and ladies in their best silks, and the lanterns were lit, and the doors stood open on to the lotus pond, where the frogs had stopped singing as if they, too, were listening. At the high table sat the Emperor and the Empress, and their children in a row: the Crown Prince, lounging on his cushion with his wife beside him; the Third Prince, counting the dishes; the Fourth Prince, in plain grey robes, with his eyes closed; the youngest princess, half hidden behind her fan.
And the Second Prince, at the end of the row, sitting straight, in the black and silver of the Lotus Army, with his hands folded on the table in front of him.
Lady Duan Shuang was standing in the middle of the hall, in pink, with a scroll in her trembling hands. She was the daughter of Minister Duan of the Board of Rites, who was sitting at the nearest table looking at her with enormous pride. And she was reciting her poem, as had been arranged by her father, and agreed by the Master of Ceremonies, and announced to the whole court, for the honour of the Second Prince.
"O moon,” she went on bravely, ”thou art so bright, thou makest all things light, and when thou art not there, it is the night.”
Down the high table, the Crown Prince made a small sound into his wine cup.
"O moon,” said Lady Duan Shuang, ”I sing to thee, and to His Highness too, for he is like the moon, so very strong and true.”
She rolled up her scroll. She bowed low, towards the end of the high table. She looked up, pink and hopeful and terrified, with her eyes shining.
The whole hall turned to look at the Second Prince.
It was the custom. When a poem was offered in someone’s honour, that person gave their judgement. Usually it was something gracious, like exquisite, or it moves the heart, or the moon herself would weep to hear it. The court waited. The minister waited. Lady Duan Shuang waited, with her hands clasped in front of her and her lip beginning to wobble.
Zhaolin looked at her for a long moment.
“Adequate,” he said.
Lady Duan Shuang burst into tears.
She did it all at once, with a great wail, like a dam breaking. She dropped her scroll. She turned round and ran down the length of the Hall of Lotus Harmony, past all the tables, with her pink sleeves flying, sobbing, and out through the great doors into the night, and they heard her wailing all the way across the courtyard until it faded away round the corner of the east wing.
The hall stayed silent.
Minister Duan had gone a deep, dark purple. He stood up. He looked at the Second Prince. He opened his mouth, and shut it again, and then he bowed, very stiffly, to the high table, and went out after his daughter without a word.
Somebody at the back of the hall dropped a spoon.
At the high table, the Empress shut her eyes.
The Crown Prince had put his wine cup down. He was sitting with both hands pressed over his mouth and his shoulders shaking and tears running down his face, and his wife was standing on his foot under the table as hard as she could.
The Emperor looked down the row at his second son.
"Adequate?” he said quietly.
“Yes, Father.”
“You couldn’t have said exquisite?”
“It wasn’t exquisite.”
“You could have said it moves the heart.”
“It didn’t move mine,” said Zhaolin. “It moved my stomach, slightly. At the fish.”
Along the row, the Third Prince made a note in his little book. The Fourth Prince opened his eyes, looked at his brother with an expression of deep pity, and closed them again. Behind her fan, the youngest princess had gone pink and was looking at the ceiling.
The Emperor let out a long breath.
“Music,” he said to the Master of Ceremonies. “Now. Please.”
The musicians struck up. The court, very carefully, began to talk again. And the Second Prince of the Lotus Throne went back to his rice, with his face perfectly still, as though nothing whatsoever had happened.
He was in the armoury afterwards, counting spears, the way he did every night after a banquet, when a servant came running in to find him.
“Highness. Your father. In his study. Now, Highness, please.”
Zhaolin looked at the servant’s face. Then he put down the spear.
They were all waiting for him in the Emperor’s study. His father, behind the great desk. His mother, in the chair by the window. Zhaoyang, standing by the bookshelves with his arms folded. And Zhaowen, sitting cross-legged on a stool in the corner with his little book open on his knee, as though somebody had invited him, which nobody had.
“Shut the door,” said the Emperor.
Zhaolin shut the door.
“If this is about the poem,” he began.
“It is not about the poem,” said Haoran. “Although we will come back to the poem. Minister Duan will be writing me a letter about the poem by morning, and you will be writing his daughter an apology.” He looked at his eldest son. “Zhaoyang.”
Zhaoyang unfolded his arms.
“I’m stepping down,” he said. “As Crown Prince.”
The room went quiet.
“When Nine takes the throne of the Underworld,” said Zhaoyang, “I’m going with her. Not visiting. Not popping up for feast days. With her.” He shrugged. “I can’t rule the Lotus Throne from the Underworld. I tried to work it out. It doesn’t work. So I’ve told Father and Mother, and they’ve agreed.”
“You’re giving up the throne,” said Zhaolin slowly, “to be your wife’s consort.”
“Her Queen Consort,” said Zhaoyang. “I’ve decided. I’m going to have a crown with pearls on it. And a veil.”
“That’s not a title.”
“It is now. I’m the first one. I get to choose.”
“It’s Prince Consort,” said Zhaowen, from his stool, without looking up.
“Prince Consort is boring. Queen Consort has flair.”
The Emperor closed his eyes briefly.
“So it’ll be you,” said Zhaoyang to his brother. “Crown Prince. Heir. One day, the whole thing.” He grinned. “Congratulations. I’m so sorry.”
Zhaolin stood in the middle of the study with his hands behind his back.
“Why me?” he said at last.
“Because Zhaowen would count the treasury until it ran away,” said Zhaoyang. “Because Zhaohe would give it all to the monks. Because Xinghe would hide behind the throne instead of sitting on it.” The grin went. “And because you’re the best of us. You just never noticed, because you’ve been too busy disapproving of me.”
“I don’t disapprove of you.”
“You’ve disapproved of me since you could frown.”
“You make it very easy.”
"There he is,” said Zhaoyang, and the grin came back.
“There is one condition,” said the Empress.
Everyone turned to the window.
Meirong had been sitting there quietly the whole time, with her hands folded in her lap. Now she looked up at her second son and smiled, very sweetly, and Zhaolin, who had faced bandits and border raids and a charging war elephant, felt something cold go down the back of his neck.
“You’ll be named Crown Prince,” she said, “when you’re married.”
There was a silence.
“Not before,” said the Empress.
“Mother.”
“Yes, dear?”
“Father doesn’t arrange marriages.”
“No,” Meirong agreed. “He doesn’t. And neither shall I. You’ll choose your own wife, from wherever you like.” She smoothed her sleeve. “But you’ll choose one.”
Zhaolin looked at his father. The Emperor had become interested in his brush.
“Father.”
“Your mother has made her views on the subject very clear,” said Haoran, “for some years. At great length. Usually at night.” He dipped the brush. “I find I agree with her.”
“I don’t have time for a wife.”
“That,” said the Empress, “is exactly the problem.” She began to count on her fingers. “You get up before the sun to drill the army. You spend the morning inspecting the weapons. You spend the afternoon inspecting the soldiers who use the weapons. You eat with the soldiers. You read military reports in the bath. I know, because the maids have to dry them out on the line afterwards.” She looked at him. “When did you last speak to a lady who wasn’t your mother or your sister?”
“Tonight,” said Zhaolin.
“You told her poem it was adequate.”
“I was speaking to her.”
“You made her cry, Zhaolin.”
“It was a very bad poem.”
In the corner, Zhaowen made a note.
“What are you writing?” said Zhaolin, without turning round.
“Nothing,” said Zhaowen. “Only, if you’d like help choosing, I’d be very happy to draw up a list. Of candidates. With their family connections, and their dowries, and their likely response to being called adequate. I could rank them. I’ve already started a column.” He held up the book. “There’s a lady in the Southern Province who’s never been seen to cry. I think she’d be a very sound investment.”
“No,” said Zhaolin.
“I could---”
"No.”
“Just a small list.”
“Zhaowen, if you write one more name in that book, I will put it in the fire, and then I will put you in after it.”
Zhaowen closed the book. He did not put it away.
Zhaoyang had both hands over his mouth.
“I’m not laughing,” he said, through his fingers. “I’m supporting you. This is my supportive face.”
“It looks exactly like your laughing face.”
“They’re very similar. It’s a family thing.” Zhaoyang took his hands away. “Look at it this way. You’ve conquered three border forts and a bandit army. How hard can one wife be?”
“I’ll help,” said the Empress.
That was what frightened him most of all.
When he had gone, the Empress rang the little bell.
“Fetch Lord Qian,” she said to the servant who came. “And tell him to bring the scroll.”
“Majesty, it’s very late. He’ll be asleep.”
“Then wake him.”
Lord Qian arrived in his night robe, with his hat on crooked and the scroll under his arm. It was a long scroll. It was the official register of suitable marriages for the royal house, and when he unrolled it, it went across the Emperor’s desk, down the far side, across the floor, and halfway out of the door.
“The Second Prince, Majesty?” he said, and his face lit up like a lantern. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve had him on a separate sheet for years.”
“Three ladies,” said the Empress. “Of good family, and good temper, and not easily frightened. This week.”
Lord Qian looked at the scroll. He looked at the Empress. He looked, rather nervously, at the Emperor.
"Not easily frightened, Majesty,” he said. “That does rather narrow the list.”
“Then look further afield.”
“How far afield?”
“Under the water,” said the Empress. “Over the clouds. I don’t mind. As long as she can sit through a cup of tea with my son and not burst into tears.”
Lord Qian got down on his knees on the floor and began to scrabble through the scroll.
“A mermaid lady,” he muttered. “Of a very old family from the Eastern Sea. A dragon princess, from the West. And there’s a lady of Heaven, a celestial musician, who’s been asking about him ever since the Peach Banquet.” He sat back on his heels. “Majesty, are you quite sure? Three in one week? His Highness may find it a little---”
“Overwhelming?”
“I was going to say ambush, Majesty.”
The Empress smiled.
“Send the invitations,” she said. “Tonight.”
Zhaowen, who had not gone to bed at all, but was sitting outside the study door on the floor with his book, wrote at the top of a fresh page, in neat brushwork: Ladies Frightened Off by Zhaolin. He drew a line underneath it. And after a moment’s thought, he went back and added 1. Lady Duan Shuang (Adequate).
